Various embodiments of this invention relate generally to phased array antenna systems, and, more particularly, to electronically scanned phased array antenna systems with photonic true time delay (TTD) that can produce one or multiple independently steered radio frequency (RF) beams, including those systems envisioned for use on, but not limited to, aircraft and cellular communication systems.
Wideband beamsteering presents a major problem because of the limited radio frequency bandwidth of electronic delay lines traditionally employed to scan the radio frequency beams from the antenna systems.
It is therefore a need to develop a low-cost, passive, wideband photonic true time delay system for steering electronically scanned radio frequency antenna arrays that is scalable to large arrays with thousands of elements.
It is a further need to provide a photonic true time delay system that is a universal solution for all electronically scanned radio frequency antenna arrays.